


Tampa Blues

by fourglass



Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Break Up, Established Relationship, F/F, M/M, Mafia AU, Mentioned domestic abuse, Mild Gore, Other, Post-Break Up
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-08
Updated: 2021-02-13
Packaged: 2021-03-18 19:33:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28623360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fourglass/pseuds/fourglass
Summary: “I’m calling him,” Sapnap announces, pulling out his battered iPhone 6s, the one with the sticker George made for Dream that he stole, “And you’re going to fuckinggrovelyour way back into his tight Levi jeans.”Yeah, Dream thinks blearily, hoping he doesn’t have a concussion.Anything to get back into those tight Levi jeans.
Relationships: Cara | CaptainPuffy/Niki | Nihachu, Clay | Dream/GeorgeNotFound (Video Blogging RPF)
Comments: 26
Kudos: 166





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> if ccs are uncomfortable i'll tear it down 
> 
> \- four

“You’re an idiot.” George leans against the doorway of his home, arms crossed on top of his chest, trying to stave off the chill that came when he opened his door to his six-foot-something boyfriend shivering on the other side, gripping a bouquet of flowers in one hand, and in the other, a still smoking handgun.

“Hey,” Dream drags the word out, adding too many letters for George to care to listen. “Hey, baby.”

“You’re actually—just get in.” George runs his hand up his neck, his jaw, his face, until it ends up buried in his hair, gripping the strands with enough force to make him stop himself from actually just tossing Dream onto the pavement and letting him try his infamous luck with getting the gutter rats patch his injuries up for him.

Talia, his and Dream’s very excited Shepherd-pointer mix starts bouncing around, and George has to keep her away from Dream lest she jostle him and accidentally kill him. George wouldn’t know how to explain that to Sapnap, let alone Dream’s family. Sapnap would probably try to kill him at some point, if Dream died.

Most likely during the funeral, knowing his and Dream’s affinity to make weird pacts at the most random of times.

Dream tries to press a kiss against his cheek as he passes by, but George—he had a long day at work. His normal job, with normal people, the job that he has where no one needs to use guns or threats in the sharpest of languages, or even worse, actual torture.

But still, dealing with entitled clients telling him to redo a program over and over again just… gets on his nerves.

So, yes. He has no time for Dream being the way he is when he’s gone through death-defying situations; at first it was good. Cute, even, but there’s only so many times George can be drilled into the carpet while Dream tried his very hardest not to actually die before George could patch him up.

He’s not stupid, is the thing. Dream’s been his friend ever since they were in diapers, and they’ve been lovers for the better part of that. He doesn’t know when Dream and Sapnap decided that—joining some kind of Floridian mafia was better than going to college, but they did, and George stuck around for every bit of it.

And this is where it landed him. In a very nice house in the middle of a Floridian suburbia with a dining table he can flip over to transform into a metal one so he could perform impromptu surgeries, with his boyfriend pulling in more cash than anyone they fucking know, and usually getting himself shot whilst he did it. “Get on the table.”

Dream pouts. “Babe, not even the sofa? I was just in a gunfi—”

George frowns and covers the man’s mouth with a hand over it, looking up into hazy green eyes. Maybe he should act quicker. “Dream,” He cuts his boyfriend off, “Shut up and let me work. You couldn’t have Fundy do this for you?”

Dream gingerly lays down on the table with George’s help, hissing in pain. Despite him having one foot in the grave, he smiles salaciously. Bastard. “I need your sensual touch, Georgie. No one else’s.”

“If you don’t shut up, I will use a fucking spoon to dig the bullet out. Now where is it?”

“That’s…” Dream’s breathing slows and softens, his eyes only for the man looming over him. He drops the gun in favour of wrapping his hand around the fabric of George’s sweatpants, clinging weakly. “Pretty sexy…”

George’s mouth thins into a displeased little line as he just uses his fabric scissors to cut through Dream’s dress shirt, groaning when he finds the gaping wound blinking at him, the blood gurgling out as if it knew how to act up once George has his eyes on it.

The first-aid kit underneath his sink isn’t so much a first-aid kit as it is a mini-ambulance, something he invested in as soon as he started earning his money, and as soon as Dream started coming home with stories about getting into scuffles with rival families across the state. Who knew Florida could be so volatile to twenty-year-old men?

Surgical gloves are slipped on, and George flicks open the overhead lights. “Painkillers, yes or no?”

He already knows the answer, of course. But still, Dream’s drowsy no is welcome to his ears.

He shoves one of his wooden spatulas in Dream’s mouth, instructing him to bite, and his man does, grinning even as George has started to dig into his abdominal muscles, somewhat nervous that the bullet didn’t exit clean through. Either someone was a shit shot, or they wanted Dream to die very, very slowly.

“You smell like shit, Dream.”

Green eyes blink blearily, like a newborn cat slowly opening its eyes for the first time. The bouquet has fallen from his grip, blood on the wrapping paper around the roots. Dream spits out the spatula so he could talk to George, uncaring of the pain. “And you smell like sleep. Did I… wake you…?”

“You did,” George hisses when he realises the bullet shattered inside Dream’s stomach. Still, he might not be a nurse or a doctor, but he’s a software engineer, and he’s as meticulous with his coding as he is with rendering his boyfriend devoid of any stray bits of bullet. “You told me not to wait up, remember?”

“Yeah,” Dream’s head lolls around, eyes roving as if he was looking for something. “Where’s…?”

“What, Dream?” George wipes sweat away from his forehead as he slowly gets the shards of the bullets out, having a care about the shape of the wound. He took a first-aid course for himself, of course, but he minored in nursing without anyone’s knowledge for Dream and Sapnap and whichever poor soul they manage to drag into his very clean suburban home.

“Got a guy… tryin’,” He slurs, and George remains patient as he tries to gurgle out what he wants to say. Thankfully, he doesn’t have to wait long. “Tryin’ to kill me…”

George blinks and barely stops himself from putting his head in his hands. “You have—there’s—I fucking hate you, Dream. Hate.”

With that, he drops the last bit of shrapnel and cleans the wound once more, suturing it quickly with sure fingers. “You’re so stupid,” George bites out, tying a knot with the surgical thread, “God, Dream.”

Weakly, “Baby…”

“Get off my table and go lay down.” George snaps, pulling off his gloves so he could replace them once he’s found the other idiot his boyfriend dragged with him. He’s sure Dream can at least save him the pain of trying to carry his two-hundred pound arse onto one of the sofas. “I’m gonna look for your friend.”

He shoves a cardigan on and makes his way outside, hoping to any god that’s listening that he won’t stumble into some dead person wearing the SMP’s insignia on their suit, because that would look bad for George, and he’d only just gotten into the good graces of the neighbourhood watch. It’s like real life Housewives of Florida and George is in it to win it.

Clicking his tongue, he summons Talia, who perks up and dashes in front of him, ears sharp and alert as she awaits his command. “Look for daddy’s friend, T. Go on.”

Talia yips and then she’s dashing off with George hot on her tail, finding a man laying down barely a block away, hair plastered against his forehead. George looks around before kneeling beside him, checking underneath his blazer for any blooms of blood.

None, thankfully.

The man is obviously injured for him to be laying down on his neighbour’s front porch, though, so George forces him upright, balancing the man’s considerable weight against the side of his body. The dude’s probably as big as Dream, if not a little bit more, but he’s definitely heavy, heavier than anyone George has tried to lug around, at least, and he’s only ever carried three people in his life, two of which were infants.

I’m not even being paid for this, he thinks dourly.

“What do they feed you in Mafia school?” George grumbles, hiking the man’s arm tighter around his shoulders, “Just raw meat and steroids?”

Even Dream was built like a brick shithouse—it wasn’t that George hated it. As a matter of fact, he’d go so far as to say he loves it, but being continually dwarfed by your own best friend and lover ever since you were children does something to the psyche. Even Sapnap didn’t have the courtesy to at least only be a couple of inches taller than George. No, both he and Dream managed to be these tall, hunky dreamboats, and George is stuck in the fucking down under, playing Nightingale for all of them.

“I’ll fucking—kill you…” Says the man who can’t even stand on his own two feet, and George rolls his eyes, shoving the idiot into his and Dream’s home. He can definitely try; Hell, maybe George will let him, just so he could go through one week without doing minor surgery on people who do very, very illegal things.

Illegal things like murder, or George’s favourite crime this month, _grand larceny_ —he has the news channel who keeps on reporting on his boyfriend’s exploits to thank for that tidbit of information.

Before George could fully get into the house, Talia yips and howls, shaking her head as she points the opposite direction; George sets the man down and turns to Talia, hurrying after her when she lets out a wounded wail and shoots into the dark night.

His sneakers quickly become damp in all the puddles he manages to run through as Talia leads him near a car, the doors open and one light on, enough for his heart to stutter to a stop as he lays eyes on—God, there’s so much blood.

There was a boy in the passenger’s seat, a blond, though he’s not too sure because of all the-the blood.

George pushes his fringe from his eyes and moves to carry the boy in his arms, and god, he couldn’t have been any older than sixteen.

Dream and Sapnap were sixteen when they joined the SMP, twenty when they took over. George was twenty two. He never understood why they’d let children—

Shaking his head, he makes a mad dash for his house, ignoring the man on his floor so he could tend to the kid. Thankfully, all he has are shallow cuts and bruises, though he is knocked out cold. Maybe a concussion.

He disinfects the rest of the shallow injuries and lets out a breath.

Sighing, he shifts to lift the boy and sets him on one of the loveseats, pushing back that bloody blond hair from his face. He looks like he shouldn’t be sleeping and bloody like this; he looks like he’s capable of noise, and happiness, and not being in the fucking mafia at _sixteen_.

He turns his eyes to the rest of the room, grunting as he picks up the groaning idiot on his floor.

His boyfriend is spread out on the settee, absolutely passed out and snoring, thankfully laying on a towel underneath him, should he accidentally pull his stitches. George drags his boyfriend’s buddy up onto the table, shaking his head as he goes through the same motions like he did with Dream.

A hand—big and warm, just like Dream’s—wrap around his wrist as George drags the fabric scissors down. The man bares his teeth, but he’s obviously too weak to actually do damage.

“What are you doing?” He growls, and he must be new, if he doesn’t know who George is. Everyone in the SMP has met George at least once; meeting George is both an omen and a boon, considering they only ever meet when they’re close to dead and they need someone hush-hush to patch them up.

George tugs his wrists free and continues to press around the man’s torso, “Fixing you.” He hisses when George notices the wide, mottling bruises low on the man’s chest. Broken ribs, then. “Does it hurt to breathe?”

“It hurts everywhere,” Strawberry blonde hair falls in lanky chunks across the man’s pale face, teeth bared in pain, “Give me fucking drugs, now,”

“You better be nice to the guy who has a pair of scissors to your neck,” George presses down on a bruise, making the man yowl in pain. “Shut up. You’ll wake everyone up in the neighbourhood.”

“You’re a shitty sawbones.”

“I’m not a sawbones,” George murmurs tartly and leaves it at that. This guy didn’t really have to know _why_ he was doing this while _not_ being a doctor.

Distractedly, the man’s hand shoots out to grasp at George’s cardigan, when George’s fingers barely graze against the bruises, pain lacing every divot of his face. He looks like he’s in his mid-thirties, like he should be an accountant rather than some mafioso. “There, there was a guy—tall. Green eyes. Looks like a bitch. Is he here?”

As quick as the question left the man’s mouth, George has pulled the scalpel he’d used to split Dream’s wound and presses it to the pulse in the man’s neck, eyebrows furrowing.

“You’re not SMP.”

“No.” The man swallows loudly.

George’s lips purse in thought. “Who’s the kid?”

“None of your business.” A beat. “He dead?”

“What’s it to you?” George snaps. He doesn’t know what this guy wants, but if he means harm to that kid sleeping on his divan, well, they’re gonna have problems, and a lot of them.

George presses down until he nicks the man’s skin, establishing just who can kill who right now. The man just shakes his head and lets out a chuckle like he couldn’t believe his luck.

The man is still watching George with those weirdly focused eyes of his, “You know what?” George murmurs to himself, a sneer on his face. The scalpel doesn’t leave the man’s jugular until he’s sure that the man won’t up and choke him to death. “I’ll let Dream deal with you.”

A slow smile forms on the man’s face as George produces a pair of cuffs and uses it on him, breathing shallow and irregular. George can’t find it in himself to feel sorry for the guy, seeing as he just called him useless and is now leering at him like he was a piece of meat.

Which isn’t par off the course for people who hang around Dream, considering they’re all miserable virgins. Dream’s only saving grace is, well, that George is irrevocably in love with him.

“Sit up,” George instructs the man on his table, mouth still turned down in a frown. “I’m going to tape your ribs.”

Fortunately, as obstinate as the man seems to be, he follows petulantly, cuffs rattling. He watches George keenly, and George wants to shift under his gaze, maybe wake up Dream so he could check his not-friend here. He doesn’t even know why he’s patching up this sorry piece of shit; it’s not like he made some sort of Hippocratic oath. He’s not a doctor. He’s a coder who happens to have a small hospital in his kitchen.

Now he has two dangerous men and a passed out child under his roof.

Deftly, he runs the tape along the man’s torso, wrapping tightly and without much care for the guy’s comfort.

“You’re out, then?” Comes the quiet rasp, the man’s exhaustion catching up to him. George doesn’t pay much attention, instead tugging the KT tape tight so he could cut it.

“Out?” George finds himself answering after a long stretch of silence. He could only assume that this man thinks that George is—or was—part of the SMP. “I was never in.”

“So you’re just… doing this?” The man’s dark eyes find George’s, and if he wasn’t unsettled then, then he’s unsettled now. “You’re normal?”

“As normal as I can be. Now be a good boy and shut up.” George cuts the tape and takes a step back, pressing the heel of his hand against his eyes. He secures the man’s cuffs before tugging him to his feet and dragging him to their basement, glad that he didn’t have a rowdy one on his hands this time. The last time he had to cuff and put away one of Dream’s enemies, he was almost disemboweled.

He wasn’t, obviously, but it was very close, and he’d had to yell at Dream for about thirty minutes of the dangers of telling their address to anyone that would listen.

Being with Dream has brought him too much grief, he absently muses, locking the man into one of the small cells Dream made the contractors build.

“Scream if you can’t breathe.” George tells the weakened man, who only groans and flips him off.

When he secures the basement, he lopes towards his boyfriend, who is still sleeping on the divan, mouth gaping as he snores. A pang of affection courses through him—there used to be a time when George would watch him sleep like this, a smile on his face.

He couldn’t even muster the energy to smile at his stupid boyfriend’s stupid face anymore. His hands are bloody and still shaking from seeing some kid laying as still as a corpse inside a bloody car.

Dream just led someone who was willing to kill him into their home. And George would understand, maybe, had this not been the second time it happened. On top of that, there’s an actual child caught up in the middle of it.

Sighing, he dips at the waist to press a kiss against Dream’s forehead, ignoring the fact that he smells like blood and day-old sweat. He’s still the man George fell in love with.

George keenly feels the cold as he wraps himself in layers, closing the door behind him so he can deal with the bloody car that’s sitting in the middle of their neighbourhood.

Love, he muses sourly, has got to be enough.

**

“You look like shit,” Says Minx, her lips slashed into a displeased frown. She says it so matter-of-factly that George can’t do anything but press his forehead against his desk, blessing the coolness of it. “What’s wrong with you?”

The morning after George had to play nurse for three mafiosos, he’d awoken to the little blond boy screeching on the top of his lungs, with Dream looming over him as if he’d wanted to strangle him. George, of course, had put a stop to that. He may turn a blind eye to everything else Dream does, but that doesn’t mean he’ll let his idiot boyfriend mentally scar some poor kid who doesn’t know any better.

George had told Dream about the man who’d threatened violence against him downstairs, and Dream went, but not before pressing a harried kiss onto George’s lips.

He’d shrugged and made breakfast.

Once the blond kid had thankfully shut up, he asked if George was keeping him captive, and George said no, then asked the kid if he wanted his eggs scrambled or over easy.

“Over easy,” The kid murmurs, sitting on the breakfast bar. “Who are you?”

“I’m George.”

“T—Tebediah.” George arches his eyebrow at the world’s most obvious impromptu cover up, instead focusing on making breakfast. “Are you with—” He had hummed, as if deeply conflicted. “Dream?”

George flipped the egg and let it sit for a couple of seconds, before sliding it on a plate. The bacon had smelled heavenly. From somewhere in the house, George could faintly hear his boyfriend ranting angrily.

“Am I in the SMP? No. Are we involved? Unfortunately, yes.” He wondered how many times he’s got to repeat this stupid spiel to anyone who asks.

“Are you touched in the head?” The boy asked, incredulous. George supposed that he should have been offended, because what kind of normal, sane person would tolerate their boyfriend essentially torturing people in their basement? Then again, George had known Dream for decades now; he’s bound to be a little insane.

George served up the bacon and eggs, hair being hastily tucked behind his ears as he looked for the box of Nesquik he’s been hiding from Dream.

The boy frowned when he saw George preparing what is essentially hot chocolate for him.

“I’m not a child. I’m a man.”

“I’m not a doctor, either.” He murmured, “But here you go, Mr. Man.” George slid the cup of hot chocolate across the breakfast bar and began preparing for his actual job. The boy seemed to have abandoned all pretenses of manly pride as he took a happy little sip from the mug.

Dream still wasn’t finished before he left for work, but the kid was in front of their television, shouting at it as he vigorously slammed his still dirty fingers on the buttons of the PS4 controller.

As he was winding his scarf around his neck, wearing one of Dream’s long unused sweaters underneath his coat, he leaned on the couch behind the boy, absently watching him carjack people with great passion. “Mind telling Dream to clean up after he’s done? I have to go to work.”

“Sure.”

“Alright. Bye.”

The boy nodded, and George wondered at both of their nonchalance. His conclusion is that he doesn’t like it.

“Alright, man. Have a great day at work.”

George had slid into his car, and now he is presently worrying his nail as Minx arches an eyebrow at him, waiting for him to explain why he looked like shit.

He shifts his gaze at his coworker.

“I think I should break up with my boyfriend.” He tells her, and she scoffs, before letting out a loud guffaw that catches the attention of some of their coworkers.

“You think?” She parrots, flipping her hair over a shoulder; she’s always been too much for him, Minx. Maybe he was a lesser man for saying so, but it was the truth. Besides, they were better off friends. In her words, ‘I’d sooner kill for you than fuck you’. It hurt his pride, but she was right. She was right then, and she’s most likely correct now. “Babe, just do.”

Maia, one of their other colleagues, chooses to walk by then, flushing pink when Minx catches her by the wrist and drags her to her side.

George offhandedly remembers a time when he seriously thought about leaving Dream for one of these women. Then again, they were normal; the kind of normal George has always wanted. The kind of normal he sees on TV, quiet and quaint. Maybe he’s boring for wanting something like that—he’s read countless books portraying relationships like the one he has with Dream, and as inaccurate and romanticised as they are, they’re not wrong with how jarring of a change it is from having a normal life.

“Georgie here is telling me he wants to break up with his dreamboat boyfriend.”

Maia blinks at that; all of them at work, obviously, has seen Dream. If not seen, then known. His boyfriend is good at dealing with the ordeal of being known. He’s charming, he’s handsome, and if George hadn’t known him for as long as he does, then he’d buy into the whole suave, tall man in a designer suit thing he seems to be favouring these days.

Maia crosses her arms. “Why?” She questions, and the romantic in her continues, “You two seem… happy.”

Happy is a relative term, he supposes. Of course Dream makes him happy; the man’s been making George happy for years, and that’s one of the reasons why George is only _thinking_ of breaking up with him.

_Of course they would think Dream and I are happy,_ he thinks. Dream has this weird paranoia that people will start targeting George if they find out that he’s Dream’s, as if most of the underworld don’t know already, and, as a direct consequence of said paranoia, he usually picks up George from work.

Sometimes he even pelts him with calls throughout the day.

On one very memorable occasion, Dream asked their boss if she wanted to contract his security company for the building.

But Dream is Dream. It stands to reason that the underbelly of Florida would know George. He’s never protected or hid him in ways that mattered.

Despite all this, one would think that Dream would spend more time with him than with anyone else, right?

Still, George is the forlorn wife left at home while his husband goes to war, the very same idiot who’s always one shout away should anyone from the SMP need him. The idiot who keeps hoping Dream would come home and they’d just… have a nice dinner, and George would finally have a good night’s sleep in Dream’s arms.

All of the weird shit Dream did under the pretense of protecting him used to make him smile. He doesn’t know when it stopped doing that.

“Yeah,” George agrees, “We are happy.”

“Are you sure?” Minx laces her fingers in Maia’s, pursing her lips. She raises their intertwined hands up as if to bite Maia’s fingers. “You come in to work looking like shit nine times out of ten, Davidson, and I—excuse my French—know what well-fucked looks like.” She looks him up and down, her eyes piercing and judging. George wants to cross his arms on his chest just so he could hide from her gaze. “You don’t look like you’re watered, fed, and well-fucked, Georgie.”

Again, she’s not wrong.

“But you love him, right?” Maia insists, eyes wide. George fidgets with his mouse, eyes flicking to the tiny framed photo of him, Sapnap and Dream. It was after he’d fast-tracked himself into a master’s degree, and Dream had wanted to celebrate. It was luxurious and needlessly expensive. The night ended with George getting an Uber to get himself home, as it usually was ever since Dream took over Soot in the SMP hierarchy.

It wasn’t the first night he went home alone, it wasn’t the first time he slept alone in the king sized bed in their huge house, and it definitely wasn’t the first time George thought that he’d be better off just stealing away into a night without even a note for his boyfriend.

“Love isn’t always enough, babes.” Minx scoffs. “Wish it was, though.”

The smaller one of the two women gingerly removes Minx’s hold from her hand, using it to tuck her hair behind her ear. Minx looks stricken at the sudden development, but artfully covers it up by reaching out and flicking at George when she realises he’s gnawing at his thumb, a tic he only does when he’s stressed.

“Um, I’m going to go get coffee. Do you guys want anything?”

Minx peers at George’s screen, looking at him surreptitiously when she finds it devoid of any sort of work-related things. “We’re tagging along.” She announces, pulling him up by the arm. Their boss, Alyssa, barely pays them any mind as she continues with her own thing; work is slow today, and it’s not like Alyssa was particularly strict about things. It probably helps that all three of them are her best employees.

Their trip to the nearest coffee shop is uneventful, but between George essentially being escorted by two beautiful women and him looking like he’s been through the wringer, they were bound to catch people’s eyes.

Minx sits both him and Maia down, claiming to know just what they needed before she purposefully lopes towards the cashier.

Maia looks at him and fiddles with the fabric of her jeans, “Are you okay, George? Like, really okay?”

“I’m fine, Maia. I’m just… tired. Yeah,” George murmurs the last of his sentence more to himself than to anyone else. “Just tired.”

She looks unconvinced, of course, but to George’s defence, he’s really not selling this George is Really Okay shtick; because he’s not trying to sell anything anymore. He just—wants her to stop with the cow eyes and the pity.

There’s a point where you stop to think why you want to end things with the man you love and start questioning what’s been stopping you.

Yes, he loves Dream. He’d love Dream even if the idiot did something so monumentally fucked up that George ought to wish he rots in hell. It’s all he’s known. There’s been no one else but Dream the same way there’s been no one else but George for Dream.

Mai reaches out across the tiny table to pat George’s hand. “Maybe you need to talk to him about it.”

Maybe he should, but what would that do?

Minx is grinning when she deposits their coffees in front of each of them, winking at George as she pulls out a mini bottle of vodka from her purse.

George laughs; at least he can always count on them.

He comes back to work slightly tipsy and a lot lighter than when he left, and Alyssa only smiles when she spots them, berating them a little before she’s off again.

Maia is beet-red underneath Minx’s arm, peering up at the other woman with thinly disguised attraction.

George makes cow eyes at them, teasing both of them relentlessly, and laughing when Maia tells him to quit it.

A few hours later, George is halfway passed out on Minx’s shoulder as she works, his tired eyes blearily watching her work, just as lazily pointing out inconsistencies in her code. Maia’s gone to a meeting with her own team, but not before she and Minx stared at each other for way too long.

Minx shrugs gently to wake George up. “You want me to take you home?” She whispers, and George feels bad for essentially being useless all day.

“Drove here,” He whispers right back, still feeling the sluggishness of his limbs from drinking two whole coffees with vodka in it. He’s always been a bad drinker.

“I’ll drive your car then.”

George frowns, dislodging himself from Minx’s shoulder. “Is Dream not…?”

“No, babe.” She didn’t have to tell him much else. That alone makes George want to curl up in a ball and cry, actually. Minx sighs and pushes his hair back from his forehead, then patting his cheek. “I’ll drive you home, hun. C’mon, let’s clock out.”

Her hand is warm as it spans around his forearm, murmuring for him to get his shit together while she has a talk with their boss.

They both clock out and Minx helps him into the car, cracking jokes at how Dream might kill her when she sees her taking him home.

“You live in the weirdest part of town, you know that? I get that your boy toy’s a millionaire or something, but this is just insulting.” Minx murmurs as she drives into what George used to think was the capital of brain dead yuppies, but look where he is now.

Pressing his forehead against the window, he lets out a small laugh; he’d been thinking of having a glass of wine before bed, too. How depressing is that?

Minx pulls up into the garage and turns off the engine before George could even register that he was actually being ferried home, sighing against the cool glass of the car’s window.

“Hey,” His friend reaches out to tuck some of his hair behind his ear and says, as kind and as quietly as she could, “Stop moping and get the fuck out of the car, babe.”

George snorts at that but exits nevertheless, shielding his head with a hand so he doesn’t get rained on. Minx just laughs and hikes the back of his coat up so she could get under it as they shuffle into the house, huffing out sighs of relief to be out of the cold November rain as they both stomp their feet on the rug the room before the foyer.

Minx unwinds her scarf around her neck as she walks in, flipping lights on and leaving George to put her boots upright. “Wow,” she murmurs, “You didn’t tell me you had money money.”

“I don’t,” George informs her, hanging his coat up on the rack. “Dream does. I’m just a lowly coder being paid hourly.”

“He must be making major cash to buy his little housewife a house in _Pinecrest_ then.” Minx lounges on the sofa, stretching her legs over the arm of it. “God, even your furniture feels rich.”

“I resent that,” George sets about pouring them both some wine, nevermind that both of them hadn’t eaten much of anything all day. Minx peeks from the back of the sofa and hums happily when she sees him coming over with two full glasses of a vintage red that one of Dream’s boys gave to him as a housewarming present.

Minx happily takes the glass from him, taking a sip that’s book ended by an obnoxious moan. George rolls his eyes; Minx doesn’t know the first thing about wine, neither does she really appreciate it. She’s always been a vodka girl, but George has all but sworn off the stuff.

Apparently, when in a pinch, vodka does well disinfecting a huge, gaping stomach wound.

The acrid smell of it still reminds George of that very disgusting night.

His friend’s eyes stray to the window across from them, frowning at the sight of rain.

“You can stay over,” George finds himself offering later into the night, swirling the red liquid in his glass lazily. He’s already drank two glasses of it and he can feel it settling in. Minx declared it her new favourite drink and all but dried out the whole bottle. “We have way too many rooms, anyways.”

Minx smirks at him, kissing her teeth to savour the wine. Her eyes are beginning to glaze over. “It’s a suburban home for a _family_ , idiot. It’s meant to have many rooms.”

“I guess,” George pushes her legs off of his lap and moves to stand, laughing when his vision swims. Maybe drinking wine way too quickly like that wasn’t beneficial for his starving body. He braces one hand against the wall. “Follow me.”

Minx dog-whistles, pinching George’s ass as she jogs ahead of the dark corridor. Talia, having been quiet all this time on her bed by the unlit fireplace, finally perks up at the noise, bounding towards George and carefully pressing her nose against his thigh. Her mismatched eyes blink up at him as he kneels down so he could press a kiss onto her forehead, tongue lolling out in happiness.

“Hey, baby,” He murmurs, laughing a little when she presses her own sloppy little kisses on his face. _Ew_ , he thinks fondly, dog slobber. “Let’s have dinner in a little bit, huh?”

“Oh my god!” Minx exclaims from the end of the corridor. “You have a dog!”

Talia yips and bounds in place, obviously waiting for George’s say-so. He laughs as he rights himself, pressing one hand onto his forehead as his vision swims. “Go on, T.”

The pointer-mix barks and launches herself at Minx, dancing around her and asking for pets.

“She’s gorgeous,” Minx’s hands are deep in Talia’s fur, rubbing at her ears and calling her the best dog ever. She’s making kissy faces when she asks, “What is she, a German shepherd?”

“Something like that. Dream brought Talia home one day and—” He waves a hand awkwardly, not really keen on thinking about the man right now. “Yeah.”

“So well trained,” Minx coos, as if she didn’t even hear him. “Can you sit for me, Talia? Sit?” Talia turns her head towards George. Surreptitiously, he signs for sit. Minx beams, her eyes crinkling at the sides. “Good girl! Good baby!”

“That wine—really fucked me up.” George confesses, pressing the sole of his hand on his eye. Talia whines from where she’s squirming happily underneath Minx’s hands. “There’s a,” He doesn’t get to finish because he’s falling onto his face, his saving grace being the equally sloshed Minx, who catches him by the armpits and hoists him against her.

“Sleepy time for us,” She slurs, opening doors until she finds one with a bed in it. She tosses him on the bed, cackling when he bounces on it. “Tha-that… was good shit, don’t regret it, Georgie.”

George raises a thumbs up. He barely registers Minx flopping beside him, her plaid button up gone, leaving her in a thin shirt and her jeans. George grumbles and kicks off his shoes, curling onto the right side of the bed, arms tightening around the pillow he’s caught.

**

For the second time in a row, George wakes up to screaming.

This time, his boyfriend has set his sights on Minx, who is brandishing a pillow at Dream, who is obviously incensed, fingers carefully tightening around his gun.

“What’s she doing here?” He asks carefully, as if he was daring George to give him the wrong answer.

Pissed off and hungover, George groans. “Get out.” Is all he says. Is all he can muster, really. He’s too fucking tired to deal with Dream’s shit right now. “Get out!”

“George—”

Minx whacks him with the pillow. “Man said fuck off, dude.” She snaps.

“Can you shut up? I’m trying to have a conversation with h—”

George finally sits up, and he knows he looks like a mess. He looks like he hasn’t slept well in weeks, which he hasn’t, because he’s been worrying to death about his fucking mafioso boyfriend while he tries to balance being a quack for the fucking _mafia_ and doing his actual job. He also looks like he’s not having the time of his life. Which he isn’t. “Oh my god, Dream, leave!”

His boyfriend’s face pinches, and George wants to throw a pillow at him. “You can’t just make me leave when you have a goddamned woman in our fucking bed, George.” He tells him, like he’s a child.

What, he can’t have friends now? So he can spend his time ‘laundering money’ in fucking strip clubs with strippers pressing their tits in his face and George can’t invite his friends over for the most depressing night-in ever? There wasn’t even any fucking Xanax, and George refuses to be a trophy wife without any sort of fucking drugs.

“You know what?” George gathers himself and stands up, letting out a frenzied little laugh as he tries to make himself look a little bit more dignified. “I’m—I hate this. If you’re not leaving, then I am.”

“You’re not serious.” Dream laughs, prideful and cocksure as always, and George forgets how cruel he can be. How much of a fucking prick he can be. “You’re not leaving.”

George’s mouth slashes into a frown. A disbelieving laugh escapes his mouth. God, could they not have picked a much worse time? Minx looks like she’d rather be anywhere else, and he doesn’t blame her. He better wrap this up before Dream gets any ideas with the gun in his hands.

“Yes, I am.” A beat. “And I’m taking the dog with me. Do not follow me, Dream. I will get a fucking restraining order.”

And with that, George walks out of his ex-boyfriend’s life, with Minx gaping like a fish out of water where she was found all but cuddling with him, clearing her throat and flipping Dream the bird before chasing after George.

Dream looks stunned, watching George leave.

That’s a first, George thinks sourly, whistling for Talia to get in the car after Minx.

“George!”

George slides into the driver’s seat, fixing the rear view mirror. He smiles sweetly at Dream, who is still in his work suit, gun hanging limply from his hand. What kind of idiot brandishes a glock at his boyfriend’s buddies? Homicidal maniacs, that’s who. “I meant what I said about the restraining order, Dream!”

Minx gives up on holding back laughter when George finally pulls out of the driveway.

Talia yips and jumps around in the backseat, barking as they watch Dream get smaller and smaller in the rear view mirror.

Despite everything in George telling him to break down and cry, he lets out a hysterical laugh when Minx begins to giggle in her seat, hair wild and makeup smudged.

After a good laugh, silence blankets over them, and George blinks at the red stop light in front of him, lips quivering and pulling downwards under the weight of his grief.

Years of his life, wasted.

And to think he really did believe Dream was his endgame.

“Fuck,” He mutters with immense feeling as he presses his forehead against the steering wheel, finally letting himself cry. “Fuck.”

Minx’s hand rubs between his shoulder blades.

He wonders if this is what rock bottom is.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im just gonna finish this 
> 
> [i want more friends](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/fourglass)

Dream has hit rock bottom. 

Sapnap flicks the butt of his cigarette clear into a glass of water, raising his arms and making hushed cheer noises when he aces the shot. “Dude,” He finally says once he’s done pretending he’s Michael Jordan, “You look like shit.” 

He does? 

Absently, Dream rubs at his beard. His house is empty. George had some movers and that  _ Minx  _ friend of his get his shit when Dream wasn’t at the house. It feels final. Is George really leaving him? Over what? Him getting all gung-ho because he had a girl in their bed? 

The other day, Dream barely caught himself sniffing one of the sweaters George left like some kind of freak stalker. It’s only been two weeks since George left him, but it’s already felt like months. 

“Oh, man,” Sapnap leans over the diner table, his eyebrows dipped low over his eyes. “You have been  _ through the ringer _ . That’s a depression beard if I’ve ever seen one.” 

Dream belatedly takes a sip from his coffee. Shit doesn’t even taste the way they’re supposed to anymore. Coffee tastes like… well, it tastes like coffee, but it’s like there’s something missing. From him, mostly. Like he’s incomplete. Like he can’t taste, see, smell, hear, or feel anything half as much as he used to. 

“Sap,” Better break the news to him now than later. Sapnap would pitch a fit if he found out that his two best friends broke it off. Permanently, this time. Not like that one time when Dream did something stupid and—asked for a break. That was stupid. Why would he want a break from the man he loves, you know? 

George looked devastated then. His stupid little face did a stupidly cute frown, then he asked  _ why _ . 

Dream vividly remembers telling him that he just needed it. They’d been around each other since they were kids; together for more than half of it. His life wouldn’t be the way it is without George or Sapnap, and he wishes he understood that before he got too cocky. 

He just assumed George would never leave. 

Sapnap’s brown eyes are kind, unknowing. Dream wishes breaking the news to him wasn’t like telling your kid that daddy and mommy are getting a divorce. 

George took the dog. Dream sincerely hopes he doesn’t take Sapnap as well. 

“Sapnap, George and I—uh, we—”

His friend’s eyes glitter. “How  _ is  _ our London boy? I haven’t seen him in actual fuckin’ months, man. Let me tell you; he’s like the only dude who can get my mom’s meatloaf right—”

“We broke up, Sap.” 

“—and I kind of hate ordering out every night. There’s only so much Chick Fil-A a man can consume, so can you—?” It’s usually hilarious to see things start to make sense to Sapnap. He reacts so vividly that Dream could swear that if he listens carefully, he can hear the tiny  _ click  _ in his brain. His eyes seem to lose its light. His hands curl into fists on top of the table. Of all the things Dream thought Sapnap would be,  _ angry  _ was at the bottom of that list. “ _ What _ ?”

“George and I broke up.” 

Sapnap’s face curls into a very unkind sneer. “You—” He points a crude finger at Dream. “Do  _ not  _ fuck with me, dude. You’re lying.” 

Dream, oddly enough, wants to break down crying. 

“I wish I was lying,” He groans, leaning back into the booth and pinching the bridge of his nose to stop himself from just bursting into tears. 

“What the fuck did you do!” Sapnap snarls, slamming his hands on the table before grabbing Dream by the collar and dragging him outside the diner. 

It may as well have been a fever dream the way Sapnap pushes him up against the wall—and while Dream could easily loom over the other man, Sapnap is built more solidly than him, and well. Dream’s been crying a lot these past few weeks; he’s not really up to snuff when it comes to being the Big Bad every cop in Florida is looking out for. 

“What the fuck did you do, Clay!” 

“Look—Sap—” Dream tiredly tries to talk his friend down from his frenzy, because honestly. Sapnap doesn’t even _like_ George; if George was on fire, Sapnap wouldn’t even _spit_ on him to put the fire out. 

Apparently, his and George’s archnemesis status is enough for Sapnap to jump to protect his dignity. 

Dream is promptly held immobile as Sapnap tries his hardest to shake the living shit out of him. Great. On top of being a melancholic piece of shit for the past month, he’s going to have to deal with the brain damage his best friend is doling out. “Sapnap—!” 

Why does Sapnap even assume it’s  _ his  _ fault? George is the one who brought some floozy home. Dream just happened to stumble on the morning after. 

Sapnap doesn’t let him finish, of course, as hot headed as he always is, instead slamming him headfirst into the wall. Dream lets out a sound of pain at that, crumbling down like a bag of bricks when Sapnap finally lets him go. 

“I’m calling him,” Sapnap announces, pulling out his battered iPhone 6s, the one with the sticker George made for Dream that he stole, “And you’re going to fucking  _ grovel  _ your way back into his tight Levi jeans.”

_ Yeah _ , Dream thinks blearily, hoping he doesn’t have a concussion,  _ anything to get back into those tight Levi jeans _ . He straightens his legs out in front of him and pinches at his nose, hoping Sapnap didn’t break it when he fucking curbstomped him. 

The crowd that’s beginning to gather gets a stink-eye from the most powerful man in Florida. 

“Show’s over! Fuck off!” 

It’s embarrassing, how Dream’s let himself fall so low. 

From a couple feet away, Sapnap is feverishly calling George, but see, Dream’s already done that. He called George exactly forty times an hour after he left, when it started to sink in that the guy just  _ dumped the living shit out of him _ . 

He answered the first time. 

Well, the homewrecker did, at least. 

She cussed him out and then she laughed, and then she passed the phone to George, telling him to snap the SIM in half. 

George did, because the other thirty-nine calls didn’t even go through. 

When he called the service provider—because George can’t just  _ leave him _ . That’s–illegal. It ought to be illegal—she’d told him, in not so many words, and in such a sweetly patronising voice, that  _ no, sir. We can’t connect you to this number as it doesn’t exist anymore _ . 

“He’s—Dream!” Sapnap aims a well-placed kick his way, getting him by the leg.  _ Ow _ . “What the  _ fuck  _ did you do, man?” 

“If you’d let me fucking  _ finish _ , Nicholas—” 

“Don’t call me that,  _ limpdick— _ ”

“—I’ll call you whatever I fucking want, bitch—”

“You know what?” Sapnap finally snaps, “If George disappears from  _ my  _ life forever, I’m gonna fucking kill you, Dream.” He says it as if it’s tantamount to the actual Armageddon, and it might as well have been; George kept them on their toes. The British bastard was the one who kept them alive all this time. Losing George is like losing a limb, and Dream  _ gets  _ it, okay? 

But still—“He’s a grown man, Sap!” Dream stumbles upright, dusting off his suit blazer, he stares at his best friend incredulously. All of that violence for a guy Sapnap constantly said that he hated. Defeatedly, Dream rubs a hand over his face. “I can’t force him to do anything.” 

“Dude, you two have been together since—the fucking world began. He’s my best friend too.” Sapnap kisses his teeth in displeasure as he helps Dream upright, the two of them making for the car that’s parallel parked across from the diner. The owner of the diner knows not to chase after them. Someone’ll settle the payment.

Maybe Dream will guilt Sapnap into doing it since he’s the one who went fucking apeshit because Dream got dumped. 

Sapnap shoves him into the passenger’s seat before settling in to drive himself. “I told you not to piss him off, dude.” He says after a few minutes of driving. 

Dream scoffs and puts the back of his seat down so he could stretch out. God. There used to be a time when he could just get Sap to drive him home, then George would fuss and bitch at him, but then he’d still let Dream sleep with his head on his lap. “Told you, it wasn’t my fault.” 

He doesn’t even remember the last time he’d done that. Doesn’t remember the last time he sat down and had a quiet night in with his goddamned life partner, doesn’t remember taking Talia on walks with George to serene little doggy parks in the late afternoon. 

They used to be—not normal. Never. They used to be in love, that’s what. Yeah. 

“It feels like he broke up with me too,” Sapnap sounds so broken up about it, his lips downturned and eyebrows swooping low over his eyes. He looks just like Dream feels; like he’s about to burst into tears any second. “This is shitty.” 

Shitty is an  _ understatement _ . “I miss him sending stupid pictures of random shit and asking me what colour it was.” Dream reminisces bitterly; the last text George sent him was to lock up the house when he was done fucking with Techno. Dream didn’t even reply. 

He forgot to lock the house, too. He was too busy hauling Techno over his shoulder while he dragged Tommy away from the PS4 and the huge mug of Nesquik George made him. 

Sapnap glares at him. “I was gonna make him cook mom’s meatloaf too. Bad fucking timing.” 

“Tell me about it.” 

A minute passes. Florida flies by, and Dream is tempted to dip his hand in the swirls of light that dance outside his window, but decides against it, tamping down the annoying little voice in his head that’s egging him on. It sounds remarkably like George did when they were younger. 

“So what’s the game plan, here?” 

Dream loosens his tie, raising an eyebrow. “Plan…? Oh, with, like. Tommy and Tubbo? Watson wants them initiated into the SMP, man. They’re like, two years old. There’s gotta be laws against that.” 

“We’re glorified gangsters, idiot. Everything about this gig is illegal.” Sapnap shakes his head. He takes a left going through south Miami beach, he cusses out a pedestrian before he continues replying, “And I’m talking about  _ George _ , fuckwit.” 

Dream blinks. 

There is no plan regarding George. Dream will wallow in self-pity for about half a year, then he’ll blow up someone else’s coke plant—maybe two, if he feels like it—and  _ then  _ he’ll take Sapnap to  _ Blue Eyes  _ and they’ll waste some cash on the dancers there. Dry his tears in someone’s thong. And then he’ll proceed to  _ not  _ move on and promptly die alone. 

George was  _ it _ for him; maybe he didn’t show him that when it mattered, but at the very least, it matters to Dream now.

He barely perks up when Sapnap pulls into his apartment complex, somewhat surprised that he didn’t drive them directly to  _ Blue Eyes  _ or Dream’s house, but Sapnap knows best. He usually does. 

“Come on,” Sapnap murmurs once the car is quiet and still, but Dream knows the way up to his apartment even with his eyes closed. He and George used to hang around Sapnap’s apartment all the time; back when they were just starting out in life. Sapnap had been the first to get a place of his own out of the three of them. George and Dream followed shortly after, a shoebox apartment in the bad part of town. 

_ Doesn’t matter,  _ George would tell him over kisses and cups of lukewarm coffee,  _ we can just raid Sapnap’s place _ . 

And they did. 

Nothing’s changed much in Sapnap’s apartment. The ugly divan with the shoplifted throw over the back of it is still there, the cat coasters George had bought as a housewarming gift still littering the coffee table. 

There’s something to be said with how much Dream remembers of George when he’s in _ Sapnap’s  _ apartment. 

“You take the couch,” Sapnap needlessly tells him, already peeling himself out of his jacket.  _ Needlessly _ , seeing as Dream is already laid up on the couch, wondering if he can catch George’s cologne on it still. Sapnap jostles the couch to catch his attention. “And if I hear you snoring, I’m going to shove cotton balls up your nose.” 

“Please don’t.” Dream smiles fondly. “George wi—”

He catches himself saying it.  _ George broke up with me _ , he remembers.  _ This fucking sucks _ . 

“Oh, man.” Sapnap balls up his socks and throws it at Dream’s face, who barely has the energy to bat it away. “This is depressing.”

And it is.

“Sap,” He begins. Something knots up in his throat. Might as well air out his grievances. “He took the dog with him.”

A sigh. Tired, annoyed. As if Sapnap has anything better to do than watch him mope; this is prime time for him. He likes watching other people suffer. “You  _ really  _ need to do something about this, dude.”

_ Maybe he does _ , Dream thinks blearily. God. What he wouldn’t give for George’s long fingers against his scalp right now. That would put him the fuck to sleep. 

**

“Hey, boss.” Wilbur is smiling. Wilbur smiling so early in the morning doesn’t bode well for Dream. “So I heard—”

“Did you hear it from Sapnap? Then it’s a lie.” 

Wilbur’s smile grows bigger. “You’re  _ in  _ the market now, apparently. Well, George is, which is nice.”

_ British bastard. _

“You’re a dickhead.” 

Fundy walks in at that moment, his eyes stuck to the phone in his hands, thumbs flying over the interface. He’s always doing some shit or another. Dream doesn’t even remember giving him so much stuff to do. 

George once nagged about delegating stuff to his employees, and Dream’s life has been better after he’d taken George’s very persuasive suggestions. 

Still, having a lot of stuff to do doesn’t stop him from ragging on Dream, either. “George dumped you?” 

“Fuck you guys.” 

Wilbur laughs and hooks an arm over Fundy’s shoulders, and Dream wonders when, exactly, he lost control over his own employees. Technically employees. George once implied that the SMP is a family business, and he wasn’t wrong. Most of the time, Dream feels like he’s giving suggestions rather than orders around here. 

“Might want to aim all that rage towards someone else, man.” Comes the sage offer, and Dream looks up from staring blankly at nothing from behind his desk to look at Wilbur, who is now lazily peering at whatever Fundy’s doing. 

Confusion laces his face. “What?” 

“I know George hates it when we do our mafia shit around him, and I know you guys broke it off—”

Dream groans. “You don’t have to bring it up every time.” 

“—but George is in Techno’s territory.” 

For the second time, he croaks a small  _ what?  _

“Yeah. One of the interns saw him moving into an apartment in Techno’s territory.” Wilbur looks at him like he pities him, which is worse, because Wilbur looks nice and kind even when he’s being a little shit. 

Fundy actually laughs a little at Dream’s expense. 

Dream tries not to look desperate when he stumbles upright, pushing his hair back from his face. George is in Techno’s territory? He doesn’t know how well that bodes for his ex-boyfriend, truth be told. Techno’s—the guy’s unpredictable and very fucking dangerous. 

Techno tried  _ killing  _ him with Tommy in the fucking car as Dream tried to drop the kid off at Phil’s. Almost succeeded, too. It was only by the grace of god that Dream managed to crawl back to George so he could not actually die in the middle of babysitting his ex-boss’s kid. 

“Can–can someone get Puffy on the line?” Dream rubs a hand over his mouth. “Get me Puffy, please.” 

“She’s with Niki, boss. They’re looking after Watson’s boys.” Fundy finally looks up from his phone, pocketing it as he looks at Dream basically having a breakdown because George is  _ presumably  _ within a couple miles of Dave ‘Technoblade’ Porcus. 

So soon after the pig bastard tried killing him, too. 

Dream is increasingly getting tired of people putting a hit on him when he just wants to buy his boyfriend flowers and kiss him. 

Maybe if people stopped trying to kill him, George wouldn’t have broken up with him. 

“I need a drink,” Dream rasps, loosening his tie. “I need a drink and for Puffy to stop babysitting those loud brats so she can  _ go get George _ .” 

“He’ll be fine, Dream.” Fundy reassures him, hand flitting towards his shoulder and squeezing. Dream looks at him incredulously. No one is safe within any sort of distance from Techno. It's just not—“Didn’t the guy not kill him when you were passed out or something? That speaks for itself.” 

It is true that Techno didn’t just gut George while he was sleeping. It’s also true that Techno wants to obliterate everything Dream cares about, so he’s not too sure if that line of reasoning will float with him. 

Wilbur, the little shit, is still smiling at Dream’s pain.

He’s even lit a cigarette for himself, leaning on Dream’s desk as he does so. “Open a fucking window,” Dream snaps waspishly, “Look, Fundy, I don’t give a fuck if Phil is going to publicly execute me if I pull Puffy from guarding his kids. She’s the only one George semi-likes _.  _ I don’t want him to follow through with the restraining order.” 

A low, thin whistle draws itself out of Wilbur’s mouth. He and Fundy share a look, and Dream  _ knows _ , okay? Restraining orders between ex-lovers isn’t that out of place. Lots of girlfriends have restraining orders on their boyfriends. Granted, it’s usually associated with, uh, domestic abuse, but him and George aren’t a normal couple! He’s a—well, he’s not a normal salaryman, and George is a coder! A very good one. He has a Master’s in software engineering and everything. 

“This is kind of depressing,” Fundy quips like the smartass he is, looking at Dream with keen eyes. “You know you almost have every judge in Florida in your pocket, right?” 

“Keyword:  _ almost _ .” But George is George; as powerful as Dream is, it doesn’t matter when he’s pitted against  _ George _ . He doesn’t like winning if it meant George loses. “He’ll find a way. You know him.” 

Fundy sniffs, letting out a small chitter of a laugh. “I do, unfortunately. Alright. I’ll give Puffy a call.” 

He’s sincere when he thanks Fundy, hands shaking as he pours himself two fingers of whisky, glad he had the common sense to hide himself from Wilbur and Fundy’s eyes. They’re great; loyal, clever, everything a man like him could hope for in colleagues. That doesn’t mean Dream likes them seeing him at his rock-fucking-bottom. 

Wilbur, having cracked open a window, takes a seat in one of the ottomans facing his desk. Dream faces him as soon as the door shuts, taking a long swig from his glass of whisky. 

“Sapnap told me you looked bad, but I didn’t expect it to be  _ this  _ bad.” He tilts his head curiously, cigarette hovering over his mouth. “What happened?” 

Wilbur likes playing therapist; Dream doesn’t fault him for it, he’s actually a good listener and gives even better advise. Dream’s just not sure if he wants to air out his dirty laundry just yet.

Still, “I think he cheated on me.” 

“You think?” 

“I—he had his friend there, they were in bed together—” Dream starts to stumble over his words, and the ice inside his glass begins rattling, hands shaking so bad that he’s inclined to think that it’s below freezing in this office, because the alternative is worse. 

Because otherwise, he’s shaking because he’s  _ scared  _ that George fell out of love with him  _ before  _ he’d thought about–about dumping him. Because he wasn’t enough. And George is—he’s beautiful. He’s kind and understanding and smart and  _ capable _ all these things Dream is barely a fraction of, but George had always chosen him. 

Even when that dickhead Sam—who is  _ better than Dream _ —tried stealing George under his nose, George was waiting for him with dinner in the oven, a smile on his face, telling Dream about his day, because Dream deserved a little bit of normalcy. 

“I-I— _ fuck _ .” Dream gasps, because he can’t fucking  _ breathe _ , because his house is empty, the closets are barely filled with clothes, there’s no one to make breakfast for, there’s no one bitching about the morning traffic, there’s no one pressing kisses to his eyelids as he falls asleep. 

George isn’t there anymore. 

_ Jesus fucking Christ _ , he thinks,  _ what the fuck happened to you, Clay Millstone?  _

God. Drista’s going to fucking  _ geld  _ him when she finds out. 

Wilbur’s eyebrows furrow, his lips curving into an empathetic little smile. “You can cry, mate.” 

“I  _ have  _ been crying, dipshit.” Dream wheezes. “Fuck you.”

The other man only nods sagely. Prick. 

“Did you actually talk to him before you started accusing him of… cheating on you?” 

“No!” Dream snaps, taking another desperate swig of whisky. He needs the whole fucking bottle. What was there to talk about? He was there, the other woman was there, they were two cuddlebugs on top of the bed Dream’s blood money paid for,  _ what else was there to talk about _ ? The fucking weather? Hey, honey, did you wrap it up before you slapped it up? Did you two want fucking  _ pancakes _ ? 

“Then maybe you should have.” Wilbur blows smoke circles lazily into the air, “I bet Georgie’d smack some sense into you.” 

With that, he unfolds his legs, lazily salutes him and takes his leave, the door clicking quietly in his wake. 

Dream tries to keep his breathing in check as he slams down his glass, pulling out his phone just in time to see Puffy’s message come in; it’s filled with not so savoury things to be said about him, a lot of curse words, and there’s a text from Niki there, as well. 

_ You made George sad?  _ Is all it says. 

Somehow, that singular text is more than enough to put the fear of God into his soul. Niki’s—she wouldn’t, like, kill him, would she? He knows she’s one of the dissenters when he took Phil’s place, but it’s not like she wanted him dead for being the dude’s successor. 

(Even if they all thought it should have been Techno.) 

She wouldn’t hurt George, either. She likes him far too much for that. Puffy acts like his big sister most of the time, too. Says seeing something so small and delicate flares up the ‘ol maternal instincts. 

If  _ neutral  _ was a person, it would be George. 

His phone makes another noise, a tell-tale noise, one that means the text isn’t from anyone from the SMP, but someone from his family. 

**Drista: i’m going to feed you your balls**

Dream runs a hand through his hair and decides—against his better judgement—to pocket his phone, skedaddling outside where there’s people who will witness his murder. He half expects Drista to already be there, a severe frown on her little face, ready to show him his place. 

_ You lost in the divorce, dipshit,  _ he chastises himself. Morosely, his brain adds:  _ He’s taken the dog and half the people in your life. Patch it up now!  _

He would, if he didn’t think George would follow through with the restraining order bit.

He’s never met someone more dedicated and true to his word than George, like that one time he got so incensed with the SMP he put aside all his reservations about the whole thing just so he could trash the SMP’s —consequently, also Dream’s—day, giving them such an ear twisting that Dream’s mom would be proud of, all because he swore that he would if they didn’t let Dream come home in time for their anniversary dinner. 

It was as legendary as it was infamous. Even Phil kept quiet in his office. 

Dream smiles despite himself, running a hand down his face to fix his scraggly beard. He needs to look not like a loser if Drista does choose to come here; besides that, he wants to look dignified before Drista shoved him into his own grave. 

**

Puffy is unhappy as she saunters into the warehouse, her presence surprisingly devoid of her partner and fiancée, Niki. Still, she smiles salaciously at one of the workers, winking at the poor lady tasked at packing Dream’s high-grade coke. 

Dream could hear her heels’ tell-tale  _ clack-click-clack  _ even through the noise, making him stand up straighter as he listens to Eret prattle on about the latest drug bust they narrowly avoided; Dream doesn’t tell him not to sweat about it too much—Florida PD likes the work he gives them almost as much as their chief of police likes snorting the shit up one of his stripper’s asses. 

Plus, he’s got the ‘Ndrangheta to back him up, among other factions. He’s fucking  _ untouchable _ . 

He’s built the SMP up farther than anyone before him. 

He’s a force to be reckoned with, deserving of this place. He worked hard for this. All this money, notoriety. 

“Boss,” Puffy’s right cheek is bright red. She looks pissed off. 

“ _ Captain  _ Puffy,” He greets back, just to see her frown some more. She’s always so bitter about the fact that she used to be a cop. 

“Your boyfriend slapped the living shit out of me,” She’s sad about it, too. George likes her, Dream remembers. Likes her more than the rest of them, at least, maybe aside from Wilbur, Quackity, and Niki. She crosses her arms angrily. “ _ I’m  _ not the one who fucked it all up, why do I get the ex-boyfriend treatment?”

Eret snorts from behind them.

God, George is such a spitfire. Dream misses him so bad. 

Dream tries not to seem too desperate as she all but runs to her, asking a million questions about George as humanly possible. Yeah. Uncool, he knows. What, are the Sicilians going to shank him for being a lovesick puppy? Last he heard their  _ consigliere  _ was panting after the Coriscan heir so much that they fucked up a drop off with some of his men. Talk about messy. People need to start minding their own fucking businesses. 

Puffy sneers. “He doesn’t need you micromanaging his life outside of  _ you _ , bossman.” She tells him matter-of-factly, leaning her hip against one of the gun crates, waving towards the red mark on her cheek. George ought to be glad she didn’t snap off his tiny bird wrist for that. “See what happens when you do?” 

Ignoring that, Dream persists. “Well—?” 

“He’s fine,” Raising an eyebrow, she pulls out one of the Sig Sauers, carefully palming it as she skillfully takes stock of it. “A little thin, but those roommates of his are really taking care of him.” 

_ Roommates?  _

A snide little smile. She always seems to latch on the smallest of movements on his face like a leech on a juicy arm. 

“Oh, yeah. Thought you’d perk up at that. Yeah,  _ roommates _ . No more, no less. Though, uh, Technoblade’s sniffing around.” A beat as she passes the gun from one hand to another. “This gun’s a fake.” 

Eret balks. “What?” 

“It’s a counterfeit Sauer. Who sucked your dick so good you didn’t clock this right away, Eretson? What the fuck?” 

There’s a reason why Puffy’s one of his  _ caporegime _ ; she’s fucking ruthless, efficient, she’s got the brawns to back her brains and she doesn’t take anyone’s shit. 

Except George’s, apparently. 

Puffy unloads the gun and hands it to Dream, who goes through the same motions she did, noting that the metal is too rough and the plastic a little too hollow underneath his palm. 

This is a step below an actual gun and a step above a fucking BB. How did they not see this right away? 

“Who gave you these?” 

Eret blinks. “Uh—”

“Just trash these,” Dream tosses the forfeit gun back into the wooden crate, wondering how much this would have cost them if it ever made it out of the warehouse and through the borders. “Puffy, I’m assigning you back to Tampa—”

“What, so I can babysit your ex-boyfriend some more? No.” Her eyes are dark and she looks like she doesn't have the time to take any prisoners. “ _ You  _ do it while I deal with this gun debacle. We all know I’m better at it than you, anyways.” 

Dream, of course, doesn’t let that get to him or his masculine pride. If he did, he’d be wallowing in the hurt alongside his fresh—or not so fresh—break up, and that wouldn’t do. He’s already slacking. 

“Maybe I will.” He flicks his hand out to check his watch. Something thrilling runs up his spine. “Are we done here? Do I have work in Tampa? If I leave now I’ll make it in time to catch Sap there...” 

Eret smiles sheepishly and hands him his phone, tapping at it before he walks off with Puffy, his  _ caporegime _ winking at him over her shoulder. 

He takes that it means ‘ _ send George my love’ _ and not ‘ _ if you fuck this up, I will tell your mother’. _

In retrospect, Puffy almost always pisses on his pride when it matters; she doesn’t have to compete with him, she already knows she’s better. 

Dream internally sags at the thought; at this point he should just stop trying. 

Sighing, he lifts up the phone and stares at it, eyes widening as he reads and rereads the messages before him, furious as he presses his thumb to open the photo that went along with the message. 

It was of Tommy and Tubbo, the two idiots seemingly having a squabble over what seems to be a bowl of frosting; Niki’s usual cat-eye is caught in the corner, signalling that she was the one to take the photo, but in the background,  _ barely  _ there, are two figures. 

One in a bright blue plaid shirt that’s ill-fitting on him—one, because it’s not  _ his _ —and the other… 

Dream shoves the phone into his pocket. 

What the fuck is Techno doing, fucking  _ baking  _ with his ex-boyfriend?

**Author's Note:**

> [my blog](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/fourglass)


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